Frosty Winter Paintings
by IcanhazDEATH
Summary: Tori's favorite season is winter. She loves the snow, and she loves painting the colors of winter. She is also a firm believer of Jack Frost. Imagine her surprise when things go wrong, and her favorite folktale character comes to her rescue! Rated T because I'm paranoid. Please read and review!
1. Snow Day!

I woke up to the sound of my alarm blaring One Direction's _Moments _in my ear. I snapped my eyes open, and reluctantly reached over to silence the alarm. I sat up in bed and stretched up arms, shaking the stiffness out of one arm from sleeping on it. I swung my legs out from under the covers, and placed them in the fluffy green frog slippers on my floor. I got up and went to the window, hoping Jack Frost had made a visit. As I pulled the curtains to the side, my hopes were met.

"Sweet! Looks like a good foot and a half. No school today, mom!" I yelled as I ran from my room. My mom was down stairs, cooking breakfast. I took the stair two at a time, racing into the kitchen and breathing in the sweet aroma of pancakes and bacon.

"I know sweetie, school called about half an hour ago. You'll have today and probably two more days off at the rate this weather is going." She said with a big smile. She knew I loved snow days, because I could go to my favorite spot by the pond and sketch the beautiful snow laden forest. We lived about a block away from the edge of the woods, and I knew my way perfectly to the secret spot. Nobody else knew about it, and that made it all the more special. "Maybe you could brush up on your ice skating too." She added.

When she mentioned ice skating I perked up, it was one of my favorite past-times. I hadn't had the chance to skate this winter though because the lake would never be frozen enough.

"Hopefully. Say, are you gonna share those flapjacks, or am I gonna have to steal them away from you?" I asked with a sly grin.

"Oh, is that a challenge I hear?" My mom said with a mischievous glint in her eyes. She smiled, grabbed the pan full of the delicious flapjacks, and bolted from the kitchen. I immediately took off after her.

"Get back here with my breakfast cakes, woman!" I yelled. We winded through our downstairs area, my mom always one step ahead of me. Finally, when I _thought _I had her cornered, she threw a pancake at me, knowing it would distract me, and darted away. I caught the pancake to avoid it hitting the floor, and popped it into my mouth. It was delicious, as is all my mother's cooking. I ran in the direction she escaped, only to find her munching on the pancakes.

"Aah! Mom, leave me some, you oinker!" I said playfully, snatching the pan away with only three cakes left. I sat down and eyed her warily, then quickly jumped up and ran over to the cabinet. I ripped the door open, searching for the syrup with one eye, watching my mom with the other. I located the syrup, and sprinted back to my cakes. I liberally poured the syrup on, grabbed the fork on the table, and dug in.

After I finished the pancakes and we ate the bacon, I headed up to my room and got in the shower. After I got out, I put on my favorite long and short sleeved shirts, and layered my pants. I pulled on my snow boots and tucked my pants inside, and put on my white pea coat. I grabbed my wolf spirit-hood and green fingerless gloves, and finally located the bag with my sketchbook. I pulled my ice skates out of my closet and slung them over my shoulder. I made my way down the stairs and stopped at the door. I called out to my mom, "Goin outside, I have my cell if you need me. You know where I'll be!" And with that, I opened the door and stepped outside into the Winter Wonderland.

The cold air felt good on my face. I loved winter; it was one of the most beautiful seasons in an artist's eye. All the sharp angles of ice, and all the soft lines of the snow. I especially loved the ice blue of the sky. But my definite favorite part of winter was that it was Jack Frost's domain. I had read all of the folklore about Jack, and I was fascinated by him. If I was asked, I would definitely say I believed in him.

I made the small journey to the end of my street, crossing the bank of snow at the edge of the road and walking into the forest. All the sounds of the busy town faded the farther I walked, swallowed by the immense amount of nature surrounding me. Another thing I loved about winter was the silence. The snow swallowed all the sounds in the forest, so that I could hear the soft sighing of the trees against the winter breeze. I slowly followed my path, which had miraculously stayed visible against the drifts of snow. When I finally made my way to the pond, my breath was taken at how beautiful it was this year. There was a small ring of snow around the pond, and the pond itself had frozen crystal clear. Although that meant it wasn't frozen _completely _solid, I could still skate on it for a little bit. The towering Birch tree branches were white with snow, and the shorter Evergreens were dusted with powdery snow on their tops. I made my way over to the group of rocks that acted as my chair, and brushed the snow off of my seat. I sat, down, and paused for a minute, taking in the surroundings, and let my creative juices start to flow. I pulled out my sketchbook, and turned to a clean page. I pulled my watercolors up and set them beside me, and got to work.

I liked mixing my paints with snow instead of regular water, because I felt it connected the picture with the landscape. It also gave the paints a natural feel, like I was becoming one with nature by using the snow. I was in the middle of painting when I hear I slight rustling above to my left. I paused, listening. I turned my head towards the direction of the sound, and peered up into the branches of an Evergreen, trying to find the culprit. _Probably just a bird. _I thought, then resumed painting. But this time I heard it again, almost directly above my head, and snow fell from the branches to land on my shoulders. _Birds don't knock snow from branches. _I put my paints down, stood up, and whipped around to look up into the trees.

"Who's there?" I asked. No reply. I turned to sit back down, when something cold smacked me in the back of the head. _A snowball? What the crap? _ I whipped around again, this time looking in the forest instead of in the branches. "Who threw that?" I was starting to get a bit worried. When nobody answered me again, I decided a bit of recon was needed. I grabbed my skates, and headed to the ice. I sat on the edge of the pond, and replaced my boots with my skates. I stood up, and pushed myself off from the bank. I circled the edge of the pond as a warm up before I started making my way towards the middle. I skated quickly, making sure not to stay in one area for too long. The ice wasn't the thickest, and I didn't want it to break beneath me. I surveyed the trees, still looking for the snowball throwing culprit. I looked down just in time to see the huge crack that I was about to skate over. I swerved to the left to avoid it, and lost my footing. I fell forwards and smacked painfully against the ice with an _oomph_, landing on my stomach. The breath was driven out of me, and it took a minute for me to regain my footing. When I stood back up, and saw the pond, I sorely regretted falling.


	2. I meet Santa and the Tooth Fairy

I stood up, and immediately regretted falling. There was a spider web of cracks branching out from where I fell. I tried moving my foot, but that was rewarded with 5 more cracks in the ice. I started to panic. _How am I gonna get out of this?_ Then I remembered my cell phone. I dug in my pockets for it, but it wasn't there. _Where is the dang thing? I know I left with it this morning….oh wait. I never grabbed it off of my nightstand. Idiot. _Now I really started to panic. I knew I was too far back in the woods for anybody to hear me if I yelled. I was officially screwed.

I looked around the ice again, and found a spot where there were barely any cracks. I bent down low, ready to jump over to that spot. I shifted my footing, and sprung.

As soon as I jumped I realized I had made a mistake. The ice where I was just at finally broke, leaving an empty hole in the ice. When I landed on the spot that supposedly had no cracks, I slid about a foot onto a spot with _a lot_ of cracks. As soon as my weight hit that spot, I heard the ice give a small groan, then give way under me, plunging me into the deep pond.

I let out a squeal before the water engulfed me, and then I was choking on the water. I tried to swim back to the surface, but the cold water was making my movements sluggish, and the water weighed my clothes down. I could already feel the burning in my chest from lack of air, and blackness was starting to eat at the edge of my vision. I stared up at the hole in the ice, my vision dimming rapidly, and the last thing I saw was the outline of a person on the surface.

I woke to the feeling of something incredibly soft cocooning me. I was warm and cozy, a stark contrast to the feeling I had just a minute ago. _Am I dead? _That was the only reasonable explanation. I cracked my eyes open, and opened them all the way when I saw where I was. It was a small, cozy room, with a fireplace in the middle and a fire blazing inside. I pulled myself into a sitting position, and looked around the room. There was a night table to the left of the bed, with a small piece of paper on it. I leaned over and picked the paper up, reading:

_Welcome to the North Pole! _

_If you need anything, don't hesitate to ring the bell._

_-SC_

_SC? I'm in the North Pole, so that could only mean….Santa Clause? _I decided to test my theory by picking up the ornate bell beside the note, and gave it a few rings. The ring sounded like a million icicles were tinkling together, and it was much too delicate of a sound to be heard from outside of the room. I was about to ring it again more forcefully, when the door flew open and a jolly Russian waltzed into my room, a silly grin plastered to his face.

"Hello! Glad to see you are awake and not sleeping with fishes, no? My name is Santa Claus, but you can call me North." He said with a bright smile. He had a heavy Russian accent, a round belly, a bushy white beard and white hair. The sleeves were rolled up on his red patched shirt, and his left fore-arm had 'nice tattooed on it, and the right he had 'naughty'. So this was Santa.

The woman standing, no _hovering _next to him looked like a hummingbird and peacock crossed with a human. She had a huge smile on her face, and was rapid firing out orders to the hummingbirds that flitted next to her. She was a ball of energy, and has zipping up and down on the air like a restless hummingbird. She had beautiful feathers covering her body, starting with greenish yellow feathers on her shoulders, followed by teal feathers, which melted into royal blue ones on her arms and sides. She had a plume of royal blue feathers with violet tips as her tail feathers, and her wings her going too fast to see. She had a slim face, which was framed by more beautiful feathers. Her head was covered in feathers, which travelled onto her face as far as her nose, and she had one solid yellow feather running up the middle of the blue and green ones. She had pink eye shadow on, which complemented the blues and green of her feathers wonderfully. _If only I had my sketchbook, these people would exhaust my paints in a heartbeat. _

I smiled at Santa, or North as he said. "It is better to be in a warm cozy bed than at the bottom of a lake. Thank you for saving me."

"It is my pleasure housing a child who believes in us. But you should know, I was not the one who saved you." North smiled at the woman next to him, and she introduced herself.

"I'm the Tooth Fairy, but you can call me Tooth. Of course you know what I do, and it is soooo exciting to meet one of my believers! What's your name?" She fired off rapidly, and I had to repeat her sentence in my mind to hear every word.

"I'm Tori. Nice to meet you guys. My mom always told me stories about you guys, and I always believed her. I can't wait to tell her she was right!" I beamed at them. "Thank you for saving my life, Tooth." I added.

She smiled knowingly at me. "Oh, I wasn't the one who saved you either." She added the next part with a mischievous grin. "Do you know of a guy named _Jack Frost_?"


	3. Yetis, Snowglobes, and Snowballs

Jack Frost? _He_ saved my life? "Of course I know who he is, he was my mom's favorite character in the stories she would tell. From the way she told it, he's a macho guy. And I guess he proved that by saving my life, huh?" I looked at North and Tooth, who each smiled. "I have always believed in him the most. Winter is my favorite season, and I have all the proof around my town that he is real."

Tooth smiled warmly at me. "I'm glad you believe in Jack so much. Sometimes he really needs that extra push, that extra motivation, one that tells him he _is _a Guardian and he _is _believed in, ya know?"

I was slightly surprised. Jack Frost, the Guardian of _FUN, _needed motivation and an extra push? "But Jack is the Guardian of _FUN. _Why would he need someone to motivate him to do his job?"

The smile wavered slightly on Tooth's face. She was trying to form a response, but North beat her to it. "Let's just say not everybody is as enthusiastic about Jack as you are." North added an encouraging smile, and clapped his hands together. "Everybody wants to meet you, how are you feeling? Happy, sad, hot, cold? Are you feeling sick?" North went into full daddy protection mode, walking over to the bed and examining me. He felt my temperature, and stared into my eyes for about 3 minutes. "I feel fine, not hot or cold, but just right." I smiled at the porridge pun. "I am feeling quit happy and excited, and not at all sick." North responded with a huge toothy smile, and spun on his heel. "Excellent! What are we waiting for, let us go and meet the others!"

Tooth gave me a bundle of clothing, which turned out to be the clothes I was wearing earlier. They were freshly laundered, and smelled like peppermint. They left the room to give me privacy, and I changed back into my winter clothes. I opened the door and met them in the hallway to begin the tour.

North and Tooth led me all throughout the North Pole, introducing me to the yeti workers and the elves. We visited the workshops, and saw the toys being fabricate for all the good boys and girls. We moved on from that room into one with a monstrous globe with lights peppered all over its surface. Tooth turned to face me, and the smile that lit up her face was amazing. "This is the room where we monitor the children of the world. Each light on that globe represents a child that believes in us." I stared at the globe in wonder. Each light represents a child that believes. Suddenly the light I was looking at went out. I looked at Tooth and pointed to the spot where the light had been. "What happens if a light goes out?" She smiled sadly. "That happens when a child no longer believes in us, or is no longer residing on the Earth." I heard the doors we came through open, and North looked to them with a huge grin on his face. "Bunny! Sandy!" He greeted the people who came into the room.

One was a 6 foot tall muscular rabbit, with a leather strap diagonally across his chest, tribal tattoos on his arms, and arm guards. The other was a small, round man with yellow robes on. His feet weren't touching the ground; he was just floating his way over to us. His yellow hair stuck up every which way, and he had a jolly smile on his face. The rabbit caught my eye and smirked at me, and the two walked over to me. "The name's Bunnymund." He introduced himself with his heavy Australian accent. I shook his outstretched paw and replied "Tori. If Santa and the Tooth Fairy are here, does that make you the Easter Bunny?" Bunnymund smirked again. "Clever one, isn't she?" He looked down to Sandy, and a cloud of sand appeared above his head, forming into a thumbs-up. I smiled at the little display. That could only make this guy the Sandman. "And you're the Sandman, right?" The Sandman smiled wide and nodded, and reached for my hand, bringing it up to his mouth and lightly kissing it. I giggled at the tickling sensation of his sandy lips on my hand.

I turned to North. "Ok, I've met everybody but Jack Frost. Can I meet him now?" I asked with an air of impatient excitement. North smiled at me and said "All in good time, young one. We need to get you home before your mother gets worried." I nodded my head, and North added "And Jack will be waiting for you at the pond." I stopped at that. _Jack is waiting for me. THE Jack Frost. Oh such an exciting day! _

"I'll take her ho-" Bunny started, before he was cut off with an exclaim of "Everybody to the sleigh!" from North. Bunny got a panicked look in his eyes. "Oh no, not this again. I think my tunnels are safer _and _faster than your sleigh, mate." Santa just gave him a look. "Will it make you feel better if I tell you that I installed seatbelts?" Bunny smiled hesitantly. "Maybe just a little."

We made our way through the halls, and into an open room that smelled like reindeer, leather, and metal. We made our way over to an ornate sleigh with red and brown paint, a logo of a reindeer silhouette on the side, and state of the art suspension. It looked pretty safe to me, I didn't know what Bunny was freaking out about.

Two doors opened from the side, and a group of pre-harnessed reindeer were led in by a group of yetis. So these were the famous reindeer of songs. "Hey North, where's Rudolph?" North just looked at me and chuckled.

They were led up to the sleigh snorting and bucking, and North made his way over to help calm them. When they were hooked up, North beckoned us over to him. "Ok, everybody in!" Tooth and Sandy climbed in and helped me up, but Bunny stayed rooted to the spot. "Bunny? Are you going to chicken out?" North smiled at him. Bunny pushed lightly on one side of the sleigh experimentally, and gulped. "Uh, I think my tunnels are a safer bet, mate." But North wouldn't have that. He reached over from the driver seat and pulled Bunny in. "Fasten your seatbelts, it might get a little bumpy!" North yelled, before cracking the reins. The reindeer immediately responded, lurching forward and pulling us towards the opening in the wall. We were met by an icy gush of wind, and North expertly steered around the icicles planted on the roof and floor. The reindeer effortlessly pulled us along on the ice, and North was laughing like a child. Tooth was enjoying herself, she had her face turned into the wind, and I could only imagine this was just like flying to her.

Bunny on the other hand, was looking around frantically, feeling for the seatbelts North said were there. "Where are the bloody seatbelts?!" He yelled at North, who only laughed harder and replied, "Ha! That was just expression!" I giggled at Bunny's reaction, which was to glue himself to the floor and reply "I hope you like carrots!" I laughed at Sandy who was clearly enjoying himself, his hands thrown into the air like someone on a roller coaster.

We were getting close to the end of the tunnel, and the sleigh picked up speed. North gave one more enthusiastic crack of the reins right before we left the cave, and the reindeer immediately took flight, pulling the sleigh behind them. A giggle of glee escaped me, and I loved the feel of the North Pole air whipping across my face. North reached for something beside him, and I realized it was a snow globe. North gave it a good shake, then heaved it into the air. It exploded into a portal, and I realized my house was on the other side. The reindeer flew into it, and we came out above the field behind my house. North guided the reindeer to land, and the sleigh hit the ground with a small bump. Bunny jumped out of the sleigh and fell to the ground, hugging it and whispering "land, sweet, sweet land," over and over. I giggled at him.

North, Tooth, and Sandy led me up to the back door, and North said his goodbye in the form of a polar bear hug. Tooth's hug was gentler, followed by "If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to call us." She smiled her toothy grin, and Sandy gave my hand another kiss. I lightly blushed and giggled, and Bunnymund walked over, still a tad shaky on his feet. He hugged me almost with as much force as North, and gave me an affectionate pat on the head.

"Thanks for letting me stay, and thanks for nursing me back to health. It was fun!" I beamed at the three of them. North laughed and said "If you think that was fun, meeting Jack Frost will be a blast." I smiled in anticipation.

Once in my house I watched North's reindeer take flight, and watched them disappear into another snow globe portal. I started looking for my mom. I found her on the couch in the living room, fast asleep with the TV on. I smiled and pulled a throw blanket over her, which she snuggled into. I walked through the house the make sure everything was in working order, then grabbed my cell phone off the table. I grabbed a spare key and locked the door behind me. The sun was still high up in the sky. _Wow, I wasn't even gone four hours._

I made my way over to the woods, finding my trail and making my way through the woods to my spot as quickly as I could, and burst into the clearing.

I looked around, drinking in every detail that could tell me if Jack was there or not. Nothing was undisturbed, everything was how it was when I fell in the pond. A ghost of the chilled water spread across my skin, making me shiver. I walked over to my sketchbook, and instead of the page being my sketch, it was turned to another page and a cute winter sketch was on it. It depicted stick figures engaged in a snowball fight, with snowflakes dancing across the page. I picked up the book and ran my finger over a snowflake, and found it was drawn with _frost. _I gaped in wonder at the beauty of something created by frost, and whipped my head up, renewing my efforts to find Jack. Then I remembered earlier, when I heard rustling in the trees that seemed to loud for birds. I peered into the branches above me, looking closely for movement.

Finally after looking for a good 15 minutes, I was discouraged and ready to go home. I picked up my sketchbook and was moving to close it, when I felt something cold hit the back of my head. _Did I just get hit by a snowball? _A smile crept onto my face, andI whirled to the face my assailant. I was overjoyed at who was standing there, snowball in one hand, hooked staff in the other.

_So I finally get to meet Jack Frost._


End file.
